Posts Tagged ‘QDisT’

JANUARY 24, 2011 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 3
Last week we wrote about different types of trusts you might have encountered, and tried to explain some of the generic terms, differences among and between types, and likely settings where a given type of trust might be appropriate. We wrote about spendthrift trusts, bypass trusts, special needs trusts and the difference between revocable and irrevocable trusts. Let’s see if we can clear up some of the confusion over less-common trust names.

Crummey trusts. In 1962 Californian Dr. Clifford Crummey created a trust for the benefit of his four children, who then ranged in age from 11 to 22. He was trying to address a problem with estate tax law: he could give the money to his children outright (and then worry about how they spent it) or put it in trust for them to protect it (but then not get it out of his own estate for estate tax purposes). His clever idea: put the money in a trust for each kid’s benefit, but give that child the right to withdraw his “gift” from the trust until the end of the year. When they didn’t exercise that right (hey — the youngest was only 11, and even the oldest would understand that withdrawing his money might affect future gifts) it would lapse, and the gift would be completed but stay in trust.

The Internal Revenue Service thought it was a trick, and they argued that Dr. Crummey and his wife had not made gifts at all. The IRS lost that argument, and the “Crummey” trust was born, in a 1968 decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. If you’d like to read the actual decision in Crummey v. Commissioner you may — but we warn you that it will be interesting to only a few diehards, most of them lawyers or accountants.

For nearly a half-century, then, the Crummey trust has been a primary tool in the estate planner’s toolbox. The trusts have morphed over time — now they are often used to purchase life insurance (and may be called Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, or ILITs). The length of time for a beneficiary to withdraw the funds has been shortened in most cases — often to a month and sometimes even less. Some practitioners even give the withdrawal right to people other than the primary trust beneficiary. The Crummey trust in each case is an irrevocable trust intended to get a gift out of the donor’s estate for tax purposes but into a trust to control the use of the money after the gift is completed. With the present high gift tax exemption in federal law ($5 million for 2011 and 2012) the use of Crummey trusts will probably diminish appreciably.

Generation-Skipping trusts. In the simplest sense, a GST (practitioners love acronyms) is any trust that continues for more than one generation of beneficiaries. The “current” generation, if you will, might or might not have the right to receive income, or access to principal, of the trust — but it will continue until at least the death of that current generation representative.

GSTs are often constructed to skip multiple generations. The model for the maintenance of accumulated family wealth is usually the Rockefeller family — some of the trusts established by John D. Rockefeller before his 1937 death and valued collectively at over $1.4 billion at the time — are still chugging along for the benefit of his descendants.

Because of concerns about the accumulation of family wealth, and the avoidance of estate taxes in multiple generations by the use of such trusts, the federal government in 1976 introduced a new GST taxation scheme. More recent changes in the GST tax have driven the types, terms and use of GSTs. The GST tax is very high, but only applies (as of 2011 — the rules may change in two years or thereafter) to “skips” of over $5 million. Very elaborate GSTs are sometimes marketed as Dynasty trusts. One common problem in addition to tax issues: the common-law “Rule Against Perpetuities” may make it difficult to extend trusts for multiple generations. In Arizona it is now at least theoretically possible to extend a trust over more than 500 years without facing problems with the Rule. That is a sobering thought when you consider that 500 years ago the land that was to become Arizona was all but unknown to ancestors of the Europeans, Asians, Africans and even many Native Americans who live here now.

In very general terms, a QTIP trust is probably designed for one narrow purpose. It permits a wealthy spouse to leave property for the benefit of a less-well-off surviving spouse without consuming the deceased spouse’s full estate tax exemption amount. In other words: if you were worth, say, $10 million dollars in 2009, when the estate tax exemption was at $3.5 million, you might have left $3.5 million to your adult children from your first marriage and most of the rest of your property in a QTIP trust for your second husband (or wife). That way your estate would pay no estate tax, and the tax would be due on the death of the surviving spouse. Since he (or she) had no property in our example, that means that his (or her) $3.5 million exemption would get used on your property first, and only the excess would be subject to taxation as it passed to your children from the first marriage.

As you can see, it is getting harder and harder to make a QTIP trust a good planning opportunity, except for extremely large estates with very high disparity in net worth between the spouses. But the QTIP trust isn’t dead yet — uncertainty about the federal estate tax, continued state estate taxes in some states (but not Arizona) and inertia preventing modification of older estate plans will all contribute to keeping the QTIP alive for a few more years, at least.

We don’t know about you, but we’re exhausted. Maybe we’ll tackle some more trust types on another day. Suggestions? Do you want to know about QDoTs (sometimes called QDTs or QDOTs)? QDisTs (Qualified Disability Trusts)? Cristofani Trusts? Just ask, and we’ll take a run at them.

AUGUST 23, 2010 VOLUME 17 NUMBER 27
It really is unfortunate that we didn’t see this problem coming. Those of us who pioneered special needs trust planning back in the 1980s should have realized that we were setting up everyone (including ourselves) for confusion. We should have just given the two main kinds of special needs trusts different names. But we didn’t, and now we have to keep explaining.

There are two different kinds of special needs trusts, and the treatment and effect of any given trust will be very different depending on which kind of trust is involved in each case. Even that statement is misleading: there are actually about six or seven (depending on your definitions) kinds of special needs trusts — but they generally fall into one of two categories. Most (but not all) practitioners use the same language to describe the distinction: a given special needs trust is either a “self-settled” or a “third-party” trust.

Why is the distinction important? Because the rules surrounding the two kinds of trusts are very different. For example, a “self-settled” special needs trust:

Must include a provision repaying the state Medicaid agency for the cost of Title XIX (Medicaid) benefits received by the beneficiary upon the death of the beneficiary.

May have significant limitations on the kinds of payments the trustee can make; these limitations will vary significantly from state to state.

Will likely require some kind of annual accounting to the state Medicaid agency of trust expenditures.

May, if the rules are not followed precisely, result in the beneficiary being deemed to have access to trust assets and/or income, and thereby cost the beneficiary his or her Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid eligibility.

Will be taxed as if its contents still belonged to the beneficiary — in other words, as what the tax law calls a “grantor” trust.

By contrast, a “third-party” special needs trust usually:

May pay for food and shelter for the beneficiary — though such expenditures may result in a reduction in the beneficiary’s Supplemental Security Income payments for one or more months.

Can be distributed to other family members, or even charities, upon the death of the primary beneficiary.

May be terminated if the beneficiary improves and no longer requires Supplemental Security Income payments or Medicaid eligibility — with the remaining balance being distributed to the beneficiary.

Will not have to account (or at least not have to account so closely) to the state Medicaid agency in order to keep the beneficiary eligible.

Will be taxed on its own, and at a higher rate than a self-settled trust — though sometimes it will be taxed to the original grantor, and sometimes it will be entitled to slightly favorable treatment as a “Qualified Disability” trust (what is sometimes called a QDisT).

So what is the difference? It is actually easy to distinguish the two kinds of trusts, though even the names can make it seem more complicated. A self-settled trust is established with money or property that once belonged to the beneficiary. That might include a personal injury settlement, an inheritance, or just accumulated wealth. If the beneficiary had the legal right to the unrestrained use of the money — directly or though a conservator (or guardian of the estate) — then the trust is probably a self-settled trust.

It may be clearer to describe a third-party trust. If the money belonged to someone else, and that person established the trust for the benefit of the person with a disability, then the trust will be a third-party trust. Of course, it also has to qualify as a special needs trust; not all third-party trusts include language that is sufficient to gain such treatment (and there is a little variation by state in this regard, too).

So an inheritance might be a third-party special needs trust — if the person leaving the inheritance set it up in an appropriate manner. If not, and the inheritance was left outright to the beneficiary, then the trust set up by a court, conservator (or guardian of the estate) or family member will probably be a self-settled trust.

That leads to an important point: if the trust is established by a court, by a conservator or guardian, or even by the defendant in a personal injury action, it is still a self-settled trust for Social Security and Medicaid purposes. Each of those entities is acting on behalf of the beneficiary, and so their actions are interpreted as if the beneficiary himself (or herself) established the trust.

Since the rules governing these two kinds of trusts are so different, why didn’t we just use different names for them to start with? Good question. Some did: in some states and laws offices, self-settled special needs trusts are called “supplemental benefits” trusts. Unfortunately, the idea didn’t catch on, and sometimes the same term is used to describe third-party trusts instead. Oops.

We collectively apologize for the confusion. In the meantime, note that the literature about special needs trusts sometimes assumes that you know which kind is being described and discussed, and sometimes even mixes up the two types without clearly distinguishing. Pay close attention to anything you read about special needs trusts to make sure you’re getting the right information.

Want to know more? You might want to sign up for our upcoming “Special Needs Trust School” program. We are offering our next session (to live attendees only) on September 15, 2010. You can call Yvette at our offices (520-622-0400) to reserve a seat.